Soul Returns to Hong Kong: From Tailor Shop to Richest Woman

The Foreign Experts Reception Center is located on the west side of the campus, not far from the Information Building. It is a newly built white tile building with a sign that reads "Beijing University of Science and Technology Foreign Experts Reception Center" at the entrance.

Lin Ying has practically worn down the threshold of this building these past few days!

When she didn't have classes, Lin Ying would run over here, always carrying a stack of notes.

That afternoon, she knocked on the door of that room on the third floor again.

When Matthew opened the door, his face was full of disgust.

"Come in," Matthew said, stepping aside with a hint of exasperation. "How many questions did you bring today?"

"Three." Lin Ying opened her notebook. "Regarding the impact of armature reaction on commutation, and..."

"Stop," Matthew interrupted her. "Lin Ying, do you know how many times you've come here this week?"

Lin Ying honestly answered, "Six trips."

"Six trips," Matthew repeated. "I flew in from London for an exchange program, not to be your private tutor."

"You've always been like a second teacher to me," Lin Ying said matter-of-factly.

"My father is your teacher! I'm just his son! There's a huge difference, you know?"

Lin Ying immediately changed tactics: "But what you're saying is in more detail than what your father said."

Matthew was speechless for a long time after hearing that, unable to utter a rebuttal.

"Moreover," Lin Ying continued, "the point about contact resistance you mentioned last time, I couldn't find it in three books afterward, only you could explain it clearly."

"That's because that book wasn't even released to the public! It was our lab's internal research notes!"

Lin Ying immediately perked up: "Internal notes? Could I borrow them to take a look?"

Looking at her matter-of-fact expression, Matthew suddenly felt that he might have owed this girl something in his past life.

"No," Matthew replied.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to teach today!" Matthew plopped down on the sofa. "Lin Ying, let me tell you, I was banished here by my father and the lab, so I was already in a bad mood. I thought this exchange program would be a good time to relax, but you've been chasing me with questions every day, more frequently than the graduate students I supervised at Cambridge!"

Lin Ying remained unmoved: "Then you can refuse me."

"Will you leave if I refuse you?"

"Won't."

Matthew: "..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Alright." Matthew stood up, walked to the metal box in the corner of the room, bent down and unlocked it. "I'm going all out today."

Lin Ying immediately leaned closer: "What do you mean?"

Matthew pulled things out of the box, one after another thick English original books and several stacks of printed and bound documents, all piled on the table.

"Here you go." Matthew patted the pile of papers. "I've brought you everything I can think of: motor control systems, PWM modulation, closed-loop feedback; some are textbooks from the market, and some are internal materials that our lab has accumulated over the years."

Lin Ying looked at the pile of things: "These materials can't be bought on the market, can they?"

"Of course you can't buy it." Matthew snorted. "There are two unpublished manuscripts in here. If you were to sell them, you could make a lot of money."

"I'm not selling it." Lin Ying immediately hugged the documents to her chest.

"I know you won't sell." Matthew's tone softened as he saw her delighted expression, but he immediately warned, "But starting today, you're not allowed to come looking for me again."

Lin Ying paused, then asked, "Huh?"

"I said, don't come looking for me again," Matthew repeated. "I came to Beijing this time to enjoy life! You know what? Enjoy life! I want to eat Peking duck, stroll through the hutongs, try your local candied hawthorns, I want to have a normal vacation, not have you blocking my door every day asking me differential equations!"

"I'm not blocking the door every day."

"You've come six times in six days, which averages out to be blocking the entrance every single day!"

Lin Ying nodded: "Okay, I understand."

"You really understand?" Matthew was a little surprised; he hadn't even used the follow-up remarks he had prepared.

"I understand." Lin Ying hugged the pile of documents, her eyes crinkling with a smile. "Now that you've given me all of this, I really don't need to bother you every day anymore."

Matthew then realized that he had been tricked.

"You came here for this pile of data from the very beginning?" Matthew squinted at her.

"No," Lin Ying denied immediately. "I came here genuinely to ask for your advice."

"Then why are you smiling like you've found money?"

"Because I did find money." Lin Ying hugged the stack of documents in her arms tightly. "These things are worth much more than money."

Matthew watched Lin Ying turn and walk towards the door with a bouncy gait, then angrily plopped back down on the sofa, yelling, "Lin Ying!"

"Um?"

"Were you a fox in your past life? Keep that a secret!"

Lin Ying smiled brightly: "Matthew, thank you. I'll be going now. Enjoy your holiday in Beijing."

After saying that, Lin Ying rushed out the door, afraid that Matthew would change his mind.

------

As Lin Ying carried a large stack of documents downstairs, she almost tripped over the threshold; she looked down at the things in her arms, and the gloom of being ridiculed recently vanished.

As soon as I reached the bottom of the steps at the entrance of the guesthouse, I saw Professor Zhang standing there, looking like he was waiting for someone.

"Lin Ying?" Professor Zhang's eyes widened immediately when he saw the pile of things she was holding. "What's this?"

"The information was provided by Matthew," Lin Ying answered truthfully.

"Given to you?" Professor Zhang strode over, reaching out to flip the pages. "Let me see, let me see!"

Lin Ying instinctively took a half step back: "Professor Zhang, please don't be in such a hurry."

"We have to hurry! This is internal information from Cambridge, right? When I saw you discussing armature reaction with that Englishman last time, I felt they definitely had something we didn't!"

Lin Ying felt a headache coming on as she looked at Professor Zhang's hungry, wolfish expression.

"Professor Zhang, I need to digest this myself first."

"Digest what?!" Professor Zhang grabbed her arm. "Come on, let's go to the photocopying room and make a copy for our records!"

Lin Ying was pulled and dragged by him towards the copy room, and she almost dropped the documents in her arms.

"Professor Zhang, please listen to me..."

"Stop talking, let's go!" Professor Zhang walked briskly, not at all like a man in his fifties. "Let me tell you, when I was working on DC motor speed control last semester, I was stuck on that contact resistance problem and just couldn't figure it out; now that there's ready-made research in the West, wouldn't it be foolish not to learn from it?"

Upon arriving at the photocopying room, Professor Zhang quickly spread out the stack of documents and began feeding them into the photocopier, page by page, so fast that Lin Ying couldn't even get a word in edgewise.

"Professor Zhang," Lin Ying said, seeing how fast he was moving, "at this rate, I'm going to ruin my reputation and emotional intelligence today."

Professor Zhang was busy making copies and didn't stop: "What do you mean?"

"I told Matthew today that I wouldn't bother him anymore, but then I made a copy of the information he gave me for my records. Isn't that deceiving me?" Lin Ying's voice trailed off as she spoke. "If Matthew finds out later, he'll definitely think I'm a really dishonest person."

Professor Zhang finally looked up, staring at her with a puzzled expression: "You've already gained knowledge, what do you need all that empty stuff for?"

Lin Ying: "..."

"Can emotional intelligence and character put food on the table?" Professor Zhang asked confidently. "Can they solve the problem of adjusting the speed of a motor?"

"That's not possible."

"That settles it then!" Professor Zhang tidied up the first stack of photocopied papers, then picked up the next one. "Don't worry, if you and I don't tell anyone, who will know?"

"Isn't this still lying to him?"

"This is called well-intentioned concealment!" Professor Zhang corrected earnestly, "It's not the same as lying."

Lin Ying.........

The photocopier kept printing paper. Professor Zhang muttered to himself as he flipped through the pages, "This model is good, this one is good too. I'll have to talk to Lao Zhao and the others about this later..."

After making copies for nearly an hour, Professor Zhang finally finished organizing the original document and handed it back to Lin Ying, satisfied.

"Alright, take the original back, I'll keep the copy; if you ever get anything new from that Englishman again, remember to leave me a copy too."

Lin Ying took the stack of original documents, shook her head with a wry smile, and said, "Professor Zhang, isn't this a bit inappropriate?"

Teacher Zhang looked puzzled: "What are you afraid of? You've gained knowledge! Once you have the knowledge, why worry about saving face?"

"But……"

"Let me tell you," Teacher Zhang said, wrapping up the copied materials and speaking with a straight face, "you don't need to feel this burden at all."

"Why isn't it necessary?"

"We didn't take anything from them for nothing!" Teacher Zhang slammed the photocopier lid shut. "Empress Dowager Cixi paid my tuition back in the day!"

Lin Ying: "...Huh?"

"Do you understand the Boxer Indemnity? How much of that money did Britain get? Go check the history! Have you ever thought about how much of the funding for the construction of their universities and laboratories over the years came from that indemnity?" Professor Zhang said with a self-righteous expression.

Lin Ying was stunned by his words and didn't know how to respond for a moment.

"We're just getting a little bit of the interest back," Teacher Zhang said, patting the stack of photocopies. "Don't feel guilty; it's not like we didn't pay."